Most modern computing systems allow users to add one or more devices. The devices added can be physical hardware devices, such as storage media, or virtual devices, such as virtual storage media for a virtual machine. However, the rules for adding devices can be very strict.
When a device is connected to the computing system, an interrupt is injected into the computing system and the computing system can determine a type of the device. The computing system can determine whether one or more general rules exist on the computing system for that type of device. The general rule can include information about one or more actions for the computing system to perform when a device of the corresponding type is added. If a general rule for the type of device exists on the computing system, the device can be successfully added to the system and the general rule for the type of device can be applied to the device. If a general rule for the type of device does not exist on the computing system or if the type of device is unknown, the device may not be added to the system and an error message can be generated. For example, if storage disk A is added to a computing system, a determination is made of whether a rule for storage disks exists on the computing system. If a general rule for storage disks exists on the computing system, storage disk A is added to the computing system and the general rule for storage disks is applied. If a general rule for storage disks does not exist on the computing system, storage disk A is not added to the computing system.